Hope your athletics skill is pretty high, because this high-value, Kenshi-inspired sake-and-rum cocktail is sure to attract the bandits.
You’ll need:
- 1 oz (30ml) sake
- .5 oz (15ml) white rum
- .5 oz (15ml) sour apple liqueur
- 5 – 6 mint leaves
- 2 dashes Angostura bitters
- 1 dash orange bitters
Add sake, rum and apple liqueur to a mixing glass. Add the mint leaves. Muddle briefly to release oils. Strain into a shaker filled with ice. Add the Angostura and orange bitters. Shake briefly to chill. Strain into your vessel and serve.
“Another band of dirt-eating peasants? Sergeant, when are you going to find me some good sport? Nevermind. Bring me my sword—and the Bloodrum.”
– Nobleman Eris of Heft
Ronin scratched at his wrists. The darkness around him was absolute, but he knew that the dawn’s light would reveal that they were still red and raw from the shackles.
He repressed the urge to spit, and continued his vigil.
Life in the United Cities was hard. Slavers and manhunters roamed the lands outside the walls, while life inside was little better, as noblemen and their samurai stalked the city streets, looking to make sport of the powerless local citizens.
Without cats or influence, Ronin should have been dead weeks ago: his corpse should have been dumped outside the city gates, nothing but food for the bonedogs.
And yet, he wasn’t.
Instead, he watched the grand noble house from the safety of a darkened doorway. He watched, and he waited, and he scratched his raw and itching wrists.
A price had been paid for his life: a mere 400 cats, barely enough to cover the cost of a loaf of bread. One day, he hoped to show that the cost of choosing to enslave him would be a lot more. But for the time being, Ronin thought as he finally made his way to the now-vulnerable rear door of the noble house of Sho-Battai, the theft of a few valuable jugs of Bloodrum would suffice.
For now.
Feeling like a different refreshing mint beverage? Try the Galaxy Waits from No Man’s Sky.
When creating this drink, I knew I needed to draw heavily on the influences of Kenshi itself: a mixture of post-apocalyptic science fiction and Japanese culture; the very name ‘Kenshi’ meaning ‘swordsman’. Hence, the inclusion of sake.
I’m not a fan of sake. It has this distinctly yeasty flavour that I’ve never learned to enjoy. In cheaper sakes, it can be especially overpowering.
However, this cocktail has begun to change my mind. The inclusion of mint and apple liqueur emphasises the natural florality of the liquor, as well as introducing some interesting fruit notes. Meanwhile, the various bitters brings out the savoury characteristics, kicking back the sweetness and bringing up what I hesitantly call “umami”, if such a word can be used for cocktails.
And of course there’s the rum, which is included for its added funkiness— and for the fact that it would feel wrong to make a drink called Bloodrum without including the eponymous spirit.
It’s an exceptionally odd combination of ingredients, mixing the sweet with the savoury. However, this only helps to further tie it with Kenshi—a brilliant game with an admittedly strange combination of base building, RPG mechanics and, of course, a truly fascinating and unique world.
Enjoy your Bloodrum, and make sure not to get caught with it!
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